Truth Always Wins

There’s a brilliant scene in the 2015 movie “Concussion” when Dr. Bennet Omalu (played by Will Smith) realized he’s kicked a sleeping bear.

Dr. Omalu’s research shows the brutal damage of repeated hits from football, America’s classic pastime. He warned people not to play the game, a blasphemy for nearly every red-blooded American male and the extremely lucrative college and pro football industry. The movie was absolutely brilliant, and I’ve always believed Smith should have been nominated for an Oscar for his performance.

I’ve also always believed the first person who tells a hard truth pays a steep price. “Concussion” is an exploration of those uncomfortable truths and how society treats the people who speak with candor and honesty.

Truth isn’t welcomed when people don’t want to hear it.

Truth doesn’t always matter when it goes against the grain.

Truth – and the first people who speak it – will be shredded, vilified and discredited.

The first people who said smoking was bad for us were laughed out of the room, usually by smokers who had a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray on their desk.

Everyone smoked – in the office, at the bar, at home, in the car. Lighting a woman’s cigarette was flirtation, an important step in that age-old dance between lovers.

It took decades for the truth of smoking to emerge, years of training elementary school kids about its dangers, increased taxes to discourage purchases, and stricter limits where smoking was allowed.

And yet, truth always wins.

The parables we grew up with reinforce this concept. The Greek goddess Cassandra who would foretell the future but was never heeded or believed. Hans Christian Andersen’s folktale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” tells about a little boy who is laughed at and ridiculed for pointing out those new clothes really aren’t there.

Truth requires all of us to be the person who points out that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes.

The first person who speaks those uncomfortable truths must be prepared to pay the price. Unfair or not – it’s what will happen.

Truth requires honesty.

Truth requires a long game.

But it’s worth it.

Because truth always wins.

Older and Wiser, But Never Invisible

I don’t remember exactly when this picture was taken. My best guess is the spring of 1987, when I was 21. It was the ’80s when we all had frizzy permed hair, toned arms and slender legs.

Heavens, those legs. I was a wild child.

Now, more than 35 years later, my hair is straight and fully silver; my body much, much rounder. I have surgical scars, stretch marks and batwing arms. My body has writhed in equal measures of pleasure and pain. It conceived two babies — my now grown son and the one I never talk about.

According to French Author Yann Moix, I’m now “invisible” because my body isn’t “extraordinary” like it was in my 20s. Of course, I don’t look the same. I don’t wear sleeveless shirts anymore. I don’t hike up my skirt to show off my legs. In fact, I’m painfully shy about being naked.

Yet, I am so much more woman – more wise, more deliberate and more powerful. According to The New York Times, the U.S. Census documents more women over 50 in the United States than ever before. Susan Douglas, a University of Michigan professor of communication studies, is writing a book about this changing demographic. 

“Older women are now saying ‘No, I’m still vibrant, I still have a lot to offer, and I’m not going to be consigned to invisibility,’ ” she said. “These women are reinventing what it means to be an older woman.”

I won’t ever be the wild child I was in the spring of 1987. I’ll never be the devoted wife, the stay-at-home mom or the trailing spouse. Those women are gone.

My future remains a blank page, the pen firmly in my grip, waiting to be written.

Welcome to the NEW! Disunited States of America

We live in an amazing country!

Where else can an ocean oil rig spew unrefined crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for weeks, kill 11 people, injure 17 and create an ongoing ecological crisis that will impact sea and shore ecosystems for decades?

Where else can a city’s flawed engineering lead to massive flooding and loss of life following a Category 5 hurricane and a failed emergency response add to the death totals?

Where else can a global pandemic devolve into a political fight with people who are willing to don shirts and shoes to enter a business, but not a cloth mask, calling such public health measures a violation of their rights?

Where else can a freak winter storm cause widespread power failures while an elected officials tells his constituents to solve their own problems because “only the strong will survive.”

Where else can we count on our elected Congressional leaders to pass yet one more continuation budget to keep the federal government operating while the deficit continues to grow exponentially and formulas for infrastructure funding are still based on 1950s era models?

Where else can the Senate fail to convict the leader of an armed insurrection that was seconds away from capturing the nation’s #2 and #3 leaders in the chain of command, but still denounce the attack and call for swift and severe punishments for the rank and file attackers?

Where else can the man who lost an election work actively to support residents in his state after a freak cold snap, but the man who won that election jets off to another country for warm temperatures and sunshine with his family leaving people to die in frigid cold?

Where else can we point fingers and blame all our government leaders and elected officials for all of these horrible, horrible events? Because that’s what we Americans do.

If we don’t like what our elected officials are doing, we have only ourselves to blame. We elect these clowns and jokers!

You. Me. Every single person who cast a ballot in the last election.

It’s easy to say, “Hey, I didn’t vote for him (or her), so don’t blame me!” But what did you do to help get the right candidate elected?

Did you make a donation to your preferred candidate?

Did you  share factual, sourced information about your candidate?

Did you help register other voters? Did you offer to drive family or friends to the polls? Did you volunteer on election day? 

The reality is that the United States of America is a great country, filled with amazing, caring people.  It’s the person who sets up a free pantry on the corner and serves hot blueberry pancakes and soup every weekend for anyone who wants it.

It’s the restaurant owner who pays off the overdue lunch balances at a local school district.

It’s the person who has a wood stove and takes in the neighbors during a major ice storm.

It’s the person in the car ahead of you at the coffee shop drive thru who buys your coffee.

It’s the senior citizen who waits until the first of the month for social security payment and tucks a $5 bill into an envelope for a holiday fundraiser.

It’s easy to focus on the big catastrophes and count up the death toll, but we cannot forget those small, random acts of human kindness all around us. They’re everywhere, our neighbors, our friends, sometimes it’s even you and me.

The next time you cast an elected officials as a villain, demonize someone who holds a different world view than you or toss around the term “fake news” because a legitimate news source reports something that doesn’t align with the latest conspiracy theory on social media, stop and ask yourself this single question:

“What can I do right now, right here with what little I have to make my country a better place for everyone?”

Because if we all do one small, little thing, every single one of us – that would, indeed, be a very big thing.

Thirty Years Ago….

Today is my son’s 30th birthday.

I didn’t send a card. I won’t see him or talk to him. Sadly, we are estranged. Out of respect for his wishes, I no longer attempt those types of contact. Nor will I use his given name in this post. But turning 30 is a milestone.

When you are estranged from a loved one, birthdays – along with Mother’s Day, Christmas and Thanksgiving – are tough days. I felt the darkness building this past week, dragging me down. So I turned to a book, I’ve come to rely on during dark times. Done With The Crying by Sheri McGregor and her website offer parents like me the comfort of knowing I’m not alone and a positive way to process the grief and loss.

McGregor writes: “As loving mothers, we surely made mistakes. All parents do. But as kind and supportive parents, we did our best. We must recognize that no matter the choices our adult children make, their behavior doesn’t diminish the good we did or continue to do. Someone’s inability to see our value does not detract from our worth (160).”

Instead, McGregor urges parents like me to focus on happier times.

Thirty years ago, on the day of my son’s birth, my smiles in these pictures show my happiness. It had been a very difficult pregnancy but a textbook smooth delivery.

After a long day of labor, my husband and I greeted our son. He was my parents’ first grandchild, and my paternal grandparents first great-grandchild. He was and is the only child to continue the Steinman family name, something incredibly important to my former father-in-law.

So today, 30 years later, I celebrate the joy his birth brought to our lives. I remember the happy times throughout his childhood. And I pray for his health and happiness for many more decades. I hope he is celebrating this milestone birthday with people who love him.

As the years pass, I accept that we will never recapture this lost time. Yet, my heart is always open; my love will never end. A dear friend once told me the end of our story is not yet written. I hold these happy memories close to my heart. I know that one day we will meet again, even if it’s in the ever after.

Happy birthday, my son. I love you. I miss you. Always.

 

When No One Believes Reality

Way back in my college news reporting days, I oberved an ugly neon green substance leaking into the Red Cedar River from an aging pipe as I was crossing pedestrian bridge behind the MSU Library. On that cold winter day, I was coming from a class and heading to my afternoon and evening hours at The State News where I worked as an intrepid campus reporter. That neon green substance was going to be my story.

Dozens of phone calls later and several hours of interviews, I learned the pipe was run-off from the nearby Spartan Stadium parking lot and the green liquid was merely the benign chemical used to melt snow and ice in parking lots. It was not toxic, not poisonous and it wasn’t contaminating the Red Cedar. It took several sources to convince me there wasn’t a massive environmental coverup happening on campus. What can I say? I was young, a green reporter [literally and figuratively].

I could have taken a leaf out of a certain Lansing area television journalist’s book and published a story of all the denials, but that’s not responsible journalism. My editor reined me in, and I moved on to another story.

I’m reminded of this every time I read something about how childhood vaccines cause autism. [They don’t.]

Or how our goverment is spraying mind control substances called chemtrails. [It doesn’t.]

Or how the current occupant of the White House insists he won the November election. [He didn’t.]

Or how there were massive voting fraud and schemes. [No evidence has ever been offered. The few errors and anomalies discovered were quickly corrected.]

In fact, about 25% of all Americans and nearly half of all Republicans actually believe Joe Biden’s election win was the direct result of voter fraud. [It wasn’t.]

Despite all the evidence, despite all the explanations from election officials and people trained to count votes, people still don’t want to see the truth – that Joe Biden won the election by winning more votes.

Skepticism is hard wired into my thinking. As a journalist, I lived by the phrases: “Trust, but verify.” and “If your mother says she loves you, get a second source.”

It’s one thing to be skeptical. It’s something else to completely disregard evidence and the truth sitting right in front of you.

Yes it’s true that Donald Trump’s campaign had more than 74 million votes, the highest number of votes an incumbent president has ever earned. Congratulations to him.

But Joe Biden had more than 81 million votes, and his campaign captured 306 electoral college votes. He won the election and will become the 46th President of the United States.

Those are simply facts. And no one gets to make up their own facts.

If we don’t agree on basic facts, we’re never going to be able to live in the same reality.

The last time our nation was this divided over basic facts, there was a civil war….

In Search of the Silver Lining…

In my quest to find the silver lining to life’s blows, I started making a list of all the positives in my post-divorce, single-woman life. Here goes:

Decorating with my favorite colors. I have always loved blue and red, but rarely got the chance to use them in my decorating. One is now my bedroom and one is the accent color in my great room. No green anywhere except for the plants.

Every single treat is mine. No one else eats the last cookie, the last ice cream bar or the last piece of cake except me. There’s a very good reason why Meijer sells single bakery confections.

Spending all day in my nightgown. There’s no one here to judge. Nothing better than taking a shower and donning a clean nightgown after a day of lounging on the deck and sofa reading, writing and hibernating. Bonus silver: Cuts down on the laundry so I’m saving water and detergent.

Cooking once or twice a week. Seriously, I cook about once a week and divide everything into individual portions for the fridge and the freezer. I’m amazed at how much time I save by NOT making dinner every night. I eat more healthy foods, along with bigger breakfasts and lunches. Bonus silver: Only eating when I’m hungry.

Letting the housework go. Instead of cleaning obsessively every two weeks, a quick Swifter across the floors, scrubbing the shower while I’m in it and a quick spritz of the counters and sinks and I’m good for a whole month or more.

Storing items at my height. My ex is 6’2″ with long arms and legs. He thought nothing of piling boxes in front of the electrical panel or storing items way beyond my short, stubby-armed reach. Now, everything is stored so I can reach it easily.

What have you found liberating and positive about living single?

Image from Flickr Creative Commons Richard West’s photostream.

That “Little Lady” Tone

I call it “the-little-lady” tone. We’ve all heard it:

• From the mechanic when we explain the vibration in the steering wheel at 70 mph.
• From the plumber when we show him the leaking faucet due to a gasket.
• From the salesman at the auto dealership.

It’s that tone of voice that implies women don’t understand mechanical things, that we just need to leave the diagnostics and repairs to the big strong man. All women need to do is pull out the checkbook and write in enough zeroes and he’ll fix everything for us.

He’s got it, my dear. You needn’t worry your pretty little head. Go apply another coat of lipstick, honey.

It’s nothing more than a pile of foul smelling, steaming feces from the anus of a male bovine. And the next chauvinistic pig who gives me that demeaning, disgusting voice is going to find his teeth in his stomach, right next to his gonads. (I won’t demean the entire male population by calling him a man.)

Since I’ve been on my own, I’ve had to deal with some fun plumbing issues in my apartment. I’ve had to handle my own auto maintenance, and I’ve arranged financing for a new house.

I’m the first to admit that I’m not a plumber, not a mechanic and not a loan officer, but I do know what an unbalanced tire feels like and what a decaying gasket leak looks like in a faucet and what it means when both the shower AND the toilet back up at the same time.

My credit score is the direct result of using credit cards wisely, keeping my bank accounts in the black and contributing to my retirement funds. I know how to budget for my loan payments, taxes, insurance and association dues. I also know enough to budget for routine repairs and how to calculate what the property taxes will be after the sales price is reported to the county assessor.

When I look at a house, I push those fancy window treatments aside and ask who manufactured the windows and what the fenestration rating is. I don’t give rat’s behind about your pretty window treatments. I want to know how much heating and cooling is being lost through those cheap windows you installed.

Yes, I have breasts – and a brain. The men who can remember that long enough to treat this woman with a decent amount of respect are going to get my money. They will answer my questions because I want to learn. They will explain what they’re doing and why and offer suggestions to help prevent the problem from occurring again. They will show me the corroded parts when recommending a complete faucet replacement instead of a cheaper gasket replacement.

No man needs to be threatened by a woman who will take the time to understand how things work and why they don’t. No man needs to fear women who stand up for themselves and insist on accountability.

So why are so many of them so anxious to treat women like they’re imbeciles?

Image from Flickr Creative Commons: Jere-me’s Photostream

When Life Gobsmacks You Upside the Head

I ended this blog in 2013 thinking that maybe I’d run out of things to say.

Wow! Was I wrong.

Life decided to gobsmack me upside the head and took a few strips of my heart and soul in the process.

Here’s the chronology:

•  I moved to Michigan to take a job.
•  I helped my husband get through his father’s funeral.
• I moved into my first apartment in more years that I want to count.
• The job turned out to be nothing like what I thought it was going to be.
• My husband told me he didn’t love me and no longer wanted to be married to me.

All within the space of about two months.

Gobsmack was the best word I could think of to describe it all.

I cried a lot. I threw up. A. Lot. I’m not afraid to say that I came pretty damned close to an edge that mentally healthy people have no business being beside

But I’ve backed away from the precipice, and my head is starting to clear a little. My heart is bruised and my soul is a little beat up. I’m moving away from that precipice with steady, strong steps.

I have a lot of very good friends who reached out to offer their support, and I thank God for my little sister who has called to check on me quite regularly. My brother and my folks, too, have been there for me.

So, here’s the new blog, people, a painfully honest account of what it’s like to be a 48-year-old woman negotiating the world alone for the first time in 25 year.

My soon-to-be ex-husband is a good man, so I won’t excoriate him here or go into the details of our divorce. I do envision a future post about financial planning and how to make sure women plan for their economic futures after a divorce. I never dreamed I’d need such a crash course.

As we have always done, we will continue to put the needs of our son first – in all things. I’m still learning how to be an empty nest parent, balancing the desire to stay connected to him and his life while encouraging him to stretch his wings and grow as an adult. As I have always tried to do, I will let my son set the pace and the tone of our relationship. I’m sure I’ll make mistakes, but I have no doubt Ethan will keep me on track.

I’m still learning the best ways to negotiate the job and be a productive member of the team. I will keep trying. I am hopeful that my core values of hard work and dedication are enough to make it work. It’s been a very rocky start and some of the blame rests with my precarious emotional state in recent weeks.

So buckle up and hang on. This ride’s going to get pretty bumpy.

 

Photos from Flickr Creative Commons: banjo d’s Photostream

Moving Offers a Lesson in Change Management

I tackled a couple more rooms today, deep cleaning all the nooks and crannies and unpacking a few more boxes. Moving is hard work – physically and mentally. Moving disrupts our routines and sense of order. It makes us less efficient and leaves us feeling discombobulated.

The first time I assembled a meal in my new kitchen, it took me twice as long as normal. Even a simple meal of pan-fried pork loin chops, rice and steamed zucchini challenged me to learn new routines. The knives and cutting boards were in different cupboards; the stove is gas, not electric. The microwave is beside the cooktop, not above it.

Every time I prepare food in this kitchen, my body is developing new muscle memories, intuitive movements to reach for a hot pad or the dish soap or a pair of tongs. Even when it’s a familiar food we love, I have to stop to think where the mixing bowls are stored, the measuring cups and the salt and pepper.

This is what makes change so hard for people – learning new processes for even the most simple of things. We are creatures of habit and we become efficient when our work space is organized the way we want it, a way that works for us. To change this space, even just a little, throws off our efficiency and takes longer.

But instead of fighting the change, your best people accept this down time and force themselves to work through it and learn new processes. They recognize that the change may make them more efficient, encourages them to make improvements, discarding outdated tools and changing the way processes are organized.

In my case, I took pictures of all the cabinets in my new kitchen and started tentatively planning where my dishes, cookware and other items would go before I unpacked. I knew that I would do a lot of prep work on the island. I knew I needed cooking utensils in drawer next to the cook top.

Before the moving truck arrived, I spent a full morning cleaning all the cabinets inside and out and degreasing the range hood, preparing the space for the new contents.

When I unpacked, I had a tentative plan but of course, I’m making adjustments as I go, recognizing that I will continue to refine how I use this new space and learn its quirks. I’ve given myself complete freedom to make changes and swap out cabinet contents and their placement. I’m researching cabinet inserts to make them function more efficiently.

Give your team this same freedom to create a new workspace and a budget to invest in the things they think they’ll need and use. Change is hard – even when there’s adequate preparation and people are eager to make it work.

Photo from Flickr Creative Commons, jasonawhite’s Photostream

2012 Life Lessons and Looking Ahead to 2013

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”
David Henry Thoreau, Walden

I’ve been neglecting my blog. I don’t have a good excuse except to say that some of the things I’m grappling with don’t belong here. But as 2012 draws to a close, it’s time to wrap up what I’ve learned and chart a course for 2013.

In 2012, I learned to:

• Trust the Universe: No matter how hard I work, not matter how hard I hope and pray, what is meant to be will be – on the universe’s timetable, not mine. I started 2012 deeply disappointed that I had lost a job that I thought I really wanted. Turns out there was something even better waiting in the wings. Being the communications manager for the Women’s and Children’s Alliance is like a dream come true. It’s advocating for women and children, juggling just a ton on of different projects that use all of my skills and all with people who share my same passions.
• Recognize my Worth: Too often, women put everyone else’s needs and wants before their own. I’m no exception. One of the best lessons I’ve learned this year is that my needs and wants matter just as much as everyone else’s. No more; no less.
• Love Exercise: Yes, I can honestly say that I’ve rediscovered something I knew decades ago. I pushed aside my needs and let someone else’s priorities come first. My exercise is very slow going, even now, but I recognize how critical it is for my physical and mental health.
• Never Settle: It was Shelby in “Steel Magnolias” who said it best: “I’d rather have 30 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.” The price was her life, and I still believe it was worth it. I don’t have to settle for someone else’s dreams. I can live my own, but I must be prepared for the toll.

So where does all this leave me as I head into 2013? I don’t like New Year’s resolutions. Too often people abandon them well before the end of January.

Last year, I used the words, passion, purpose and persistence to define my year. They fit and I feel good looking back at what I’ve learned this year. I don’t have three words this year, but I do have three simple lessons to guide me:

It’s okay to not have all the answers. I don’t know what 2013 is going to bring. I don’t have all the answers for the things I’ve been grappling with these last few months. But I trust that, in time, the universe will show me.

If it is to be, it’s up to me. If it’s my dream or my goal, I alone will make it a priority. I can’t expect someone else to put my priorities first if I don’t.

Today is all that matters. Yesterday is gone and there’s no guarantee tomorrow will ever come. There is only today, here and now. And it is enough.